UK to lift minimal PhD stipend to £21,805 from October

The UK will enhance the minimal stipend paid to PhD college students from October 1, elevating annual help to £21,805 for the following tutorial 12 months.

That is based on an announcement by UK Analysis and Innovation, the nation’s nationwide analysis funding physique.

The rise represents one other above-inflation uplift and is geared toward easing cost-of-living pressures going through doctoral researchers throughout the UK.

What UKRI stated

Based on UK Analysis and Innovation, the brand new charge raises the minimal stipend from £20,780 to £21,805 for PhD college students outdoors London.

• For college students primarily based in London, the minimal stipend will enhance from £22,780 to £23,805, reflecting a 4.5% rise.
• UKRI stated the uplift types a part of its ongoing efforts to enhance monetary help for doctoral researchers and make PhD research extra sustainable amid rising dwelling prices.
• Along with stipends, UKRI additionally introduced a rise within the minimal price it pays universities per UKRI-funded PhD pupil. The price will rise by 4.6%, from £5,006 to £5,238.

Past monetary help, UKRI has additionally launched reforms to pupil welfare insurance policies. These embrace permitting doctoral researchers to take as much as 28 weeks of medical depart, a change designed to make it simpler for college kids to increase their research when vital and scale back obstacles for disabled PhD candidates.

Backstory

The choice follows sustained stress from pupil teams, notably in London, over the affordability of doctoral research.

Based on a report, college students’ unions within the capital final 12 months referred to as for a £2,500 enhance in stipends, warning that with out stronger monetary help, PhD programmes danger turning into accessible solely to college students from extra privileged backgrounds.

UKRI had already carried out a big enhance within the earlier tutorial 12 months, elevating the tax-free stipend by 8% in actual phrases. On the time, the funding physique stated the transfer was meant to carry PhD take-home pay nearer to the nationwide dwelling wage.

What you need to know 

Final 12 months, authorities advisers within the UK beneficial ending visa wage reductions for PhD holders underneath the Expert Employee visa system, arguing that there isn’t a proof that doctorate holders are paid lower than different expert employees.

• This suggestion comes from the Migration Advisory Committee’s evaluate, commissioned after the general wage threshold for the visa route was raised.
• The committee steered eradicating the particular decrease wage thresholds for PhD holders and transferring to an easier single new entrant wage threshold, reflecting issues that present reductions are now not justified.

Recall that in 2023, the Engineering and Bodily Sciences Analysis Council and the Wellcome Belief in the reduction of on funding for PhD programmes, decreasing the variety of Centres for Doctoral Coaching supported by EPSRC from 75 to round 40 and chopping total funding from about £441 million in 2018 to roughly £324 million.

The Wellcome Belief additionally discontinued institutional PhD funding to focus its technique on longer grants for early‑ and mid‑profession researchers